Propagation of native trees by local communities in the forests of Ketou: a new challenge for habitat restoration in Benin Republic.

International audienceThis work, supported by the Rufford Foundation, is a pragmatic, substantial and long lasting contribution to nature conservation. It aims at including the contributions of the stakeholders in the sustainable management of natural resources from a remnant forest in Ketou region (Benin Republic). Ketou region has a long history of cultures combined with its biodiversity, including endemic plant species, concentrated in the unique Ewe-Adapklamey fragment forest. An exploration of available plants from this forest allowed to establish a preliminary list of useful tree species. So, knowledge of their current status would be updated and improved for conservation priority in Benin. In order to understand how the stakeholders can participate to the conservation activities, Farmer Field Schools known as a Group Extension Method based on adult educations method have been used to assess and take into account the expectation of local population. It consists to test an inexpensive Vegetative Propagation method, reproducible by local communities. We will present this groupbased learning process and how it allows us to collect data from the current indigenous conservation practices. This study gives us an instance to understand how indigenous people can participate to the conservation function and the sustainable management of plant resources at local scales. It would be of the utmost interest if our project could beneficiate of collaborative Web tools and we will discuss the requirement to setting up